Consumers purchase and use numerous electronic devices and appliances. With the evolution of the “Internet of Things,” these devices are becoming increasingly self-aware and capable of communication using commonly understood networking protocols. However, they are also often “sunk cost” depreciating assets in a typical consumer's home or business, offering little to no value, short of an active effort to manually attempt to sell or otherwise monetize these electronic devices. Even then, in a manual sale offer, the condition of these devices is often difficult to ascertain or verify visually by a prospective buyer. This is the case even when the technical specifications of the device are known, as there is still no way to guarantee that the device is functioning to manufacturing specifications. This functionality (or a lack thereof) would presumably impact the device's resale value.
Additionally, it may be difficult for a user to ascertain the appropriate time to discard or replace an electronic device. For example, the functionality of a particular electronic device may decrease even as newer versions of the device become faster, more resilient, and/or more efficient. It may be difficult to determine whether the cost of replacement for the electronic device is offset by the increased functionality of a new device.
Once a user has determined that an electronic device should be replaced or discarded, the user must often then undertake a process to sell the electronic device. This might involve creating a product offer listing on one or more electronic retailer websites. This can be a time-consuming process if the user wishes to use more than one electronic retailer to sell the electronic device. Furthermore, the user might then need to monitor each of the electronic retailers to determine when the device has been sold. Failing to do this might lead to the user accidentally selling the device two or more times to different purchasers, which can ultimately cause a bad review to be left by at least some of those purchasers.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems, individually and collectively.